150 YEARS AGO: Guerrillas swipe guns, ammo from hunters

MARTINSBURG — A party of grouse hunters from St. Louis lost their guns and ammunition to a band of guerrillas who awakened them as they slept in a home about a mile from the North Missouri Railroad.

Six hunters had started out two days earlier in search of sport in the prairies along the railroad. Game was abundant, a report in the St. Louis Daily Missouri Republican said, because “no person has been fond enough of the sport to venture out with a gun, in fear of bushwhackers; and a hunter, if met by a party of soldiers, is liable to be taken for a bushwhacker, and stands in real danger of losing his life.”

The party had good luck for two days before the 1 a.m. knock on the door this day that revealed seven bushwhackers trying to get in and more surrounding the house. They demanded and received all the guns and ammunition but did not rob the men of their money or other valuables.

The hunting party was five men and a teenage boy, the son of one of the hunters. After gathering the weapons, the guerrillas discussed what to do with their prisoners. “At first it was decided to shoot the whole party, except for the boy. Then they concluded they would only kill Messrs. Mahan and Chesley, they being, as the bushwhackers termed them, the ‘worst’ of the union men in the crowd.”

Mahan was James Mahan, proprietor of the Avenue House hotel, and Chesley was Jonathan Chesley, a boarding house operator. The men were put on horses but made a persuasive case for their lives and were freed.

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ST. JOSEPH — Brig. Gen. Odon Guitar gave a speech that “was loyal to the core,” the Morning Herald reported.

The Herald, a Radical abolition newspaper and generally antagonistic to Guitar, found little fault in what he said but attacked the organizers of the meeting he addressed and sought to taint Guitar in that way. The Evening News, a conservative rival to the Herald, praised Guitar’s speech as a tough warning to all lawbreakers, rebel and Union, that violence must stop.

The Herald reported that Guitar promised that no loyal man who needed a gun for self-defense would be denied permission to carry one. It also reported that Guitar said he was willing to fight the war for 99 more years if necessary to subdue the South.

“We came to the conclusion that Gen. Guitar is a loyal man, but one of the most unfortunate men that ever existed,” the Herald said. “His associates here are all Copperheads. Elsewhere we hear the same complaints. For some reason he fails, every time, to meet the views and wishes of loyal men.”

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CALIFORNIA — A company of militia was called out to protect Henry, a slave accused of killing his master, Alfred Norman, on July 9, the Weekly California News reported.

Henry was being held in the Moniteau County Jail, and his trial was scheduled to take place in two days. He had confessed his guilt at his arraignment. Capt. Hugh Yarnell and Company A of the 43rd Enrolled Missouri Militia were given the task of preventing a mob from lynching Henry before his trial.

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JEFFERSON CITY — State Rep. William Curry used the pages of his Missouri State Times newspaper to defend his reputation against charges he was replaced as an officer of the Missouri State Penitentiary for failing to account for public property and money in his control.

Curry had been the “factor” of the prison before his election to the legislature. In that capacity, he purchased materials for inmate work and other goods for the institution and established contracts for the labor and products of the prison. The St. Louis Daily Missouri Republican had reported he had been fired.

Curry claimed he had resigned because state law did not allow him to be a lawmaker and retain his job. The discrepancies between his receipts and his accounts were a result of clerical entries, Curry wrote. The books of the institution showed he owed $1,745.

An investigation was underway to “remove even the appearance of delinquency,” he wrote.